The BBC appear to have a worse choice to make than the ECB. Sack Clarkson and watch Top Gear ratings fall through the floor and BBC Worldwide profits halve while at the same time watch a bidding war spark off between Sky, BT Sport, Virgin and ITV for the successor to Top Gear or back down and not sack the man who had his final warning last year.

As a Top Gear fan I am mighty pissed off that the last three episodes of this eight episode series have been pulled. Guess I'll just have to resort to Dave.

The choices of the ECB are constrained by the Maastricht Treaty, which was a combination of the French desiring to constrain the Germans, and the Bundesbank desiring to constrain everybody. Not pretty. And an even less pretty outcome, especially for the Greeks. But at least we escaped, mostly thanks to a cricket-loving Prime Minister.

Apparently the knuckle-dragging self-publicist threw a punch at a producer. That's a sacking offence even for such a delicate starlet as him.
I don't believe that TG is the only thing that makes money in the BBC Worldwide basket. And if it is, then it's probably time for the darkness to descend on us all.

Clarkson, 54, was suspended after a "fracas" with a BBC producer thought to work on the show.

Sunday's episode of Top Gear will not be shown, and it is understood the two final episodes in the series will also be dropped.

The petition was started on Tuesday by political blogger Guido Fawkes.

It reached the 250,000 mark by mid-morning on Wednesday.

Asked about the Clarkson incident, co-presenter James May told BBC News: "I think he's been involved in a bit of a dust-up and I don't think it's that serious." He said he had not been present.

Earlier on Wednesday, Clarkson's retweeted a message to his 4.5m Twitter followers from a Top Gear viewer which read: "How can BBC not show the remaining episodes of Top Gear, can't this be resolved without making the fans suffer?"

"Fracas" has French roots but it is originally from the Italian "fracassare", to cause uproar.

Its first noted use in English was in 1727, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The writer Lady Mary Worley Montagu wrote in a letter: "A… violent fracas took place between the infantry-colonel and his lady."

If you speak British English, you pronounce it "frah-car", but Americans tend to pronounce it "fray-cuss".

i thought I would take advantage of the hiatus in this cultural thread to introduce a cultural concern of my own which I was originally going to address to Andre only. But on consideration I think I should throw it open to all comers.

How should I approach the poet Rilke?

I have an anthology, with translation by the rather pleasingly titled Michael Hamburger. However I find the poems rather soaring, almost with the nausea of motion and I distrust the translation.